New Trial Could Finally Overturn Terrible Conviction

Richard Lapointe, seen in 1995, was convicted of the rape and murder of his mother-in-law in 1992.

Richard Lapointe, seen in 1995, was convicted of the rape and murder of his mother-in-law in 1992.

EDITORIALThe Hartford Courant

On this day 25 years ago, Manchester police took a small, physically weak, mentally handicapped man named Richard Lapointe into custody, charging him with the brutal rape and murder of his wife's grandmother, 88-year-old Bernice Martin, which took place two years earlier in Manchester. Mr. Lapointe, 41 years old at the time and with no history of violence, was convicted of the crime in 1992 and is still in prison.

The case is so riddled with mistakes, inconsistencies and questions that each day he remains in prison is an indictment of the state's criminal justice system.

Mr. Lapointe was convicted of the crime largely because he confessed, but his confession is so questionable as to be virtually meaningless. Manchester police lured him to headquarters on July 4th, 1989, and kept him there for 91/2 hours. He had no lawyer and the interrogation was not recorded, at least not for posterity. Over the course of the evening, Mr. Lapointe gave three confessions. Two were nonsensical and a third contained some details of the crime — details that did not jibe with later testimony by forensic experts on how the crime was committed. Afterward, police let him go home, and arrested him the next day.

So, though Mr. Lapointe had no lawyer, was tired and hungry and has a mental disability that makes him easily influenced by authority figures, his confession was good enough to convict him.

Then there was the time frame. While police were wheedling the confessions out of Mr. Lapointe, other officers interviewed his wife, Karen. She steadfastly maintained her husband was home during the evening, and the only time he was out of her sight was between 6:15 and 7 p.m., when she gave their young son a bath. When she came downstairs, she noticed nothing out of the ordinary about Mr. Lapointe, who was watching television. It would have been virtually impossible for Mr. Lapointe to commit the crime in that time.

There are other issues as well that pose serious questions about whether Mr. Lapointe was convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. But in the quarter-century since Mr. Lapointe lost his freedom, the state has mostly fought to protect the conviction, not determine whether or not it was fair.

In 2012, the state Appellate Court granted Mr. Lapointe a new trial. The state appealed; Mr. Lapointe awaits a decision from the state Supreme Court. He deserves a new trial.